In 2007, supported by an extraordinary team of family, friends, and medical staff, I stomped the snot out of a nasty cancer that was on its way to killing me. I've since learned that the way I did it has a lot in common with the advice of the "e-patients" movement, so I've changed my blogger name from Patient Dave to e-Patient Dave.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

I'm thrilled that there's so much publicity these days for patients being empowered by the Internet, and doctors supporting them, such as Amy Tenderich's article (below).

I have a suggestion: let's use the term e-patients when we talk to others about this, in print and online and in person. I suggest this because other terms are appearing in articles, such as "medical googlers," and some stories document unproductive or rude instances of patients who use email and the Web. In contrast, the e-patient movement has a long history and well established set of principles.

E-patient means something specific, a set of values and behaviors worth knowing about, and worth distinguishing from "just googling."

I just commented with more details about branding on Susannah Fox's Nov. 26 post on the e-patients blog.